


Rose Petals in a Bell Jar

by Washedawaycloud



Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Double Drabble, Episode: s01e14 The Christmas Invasion, Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, Female Friendship, Gen, Implied Polyfidelity, Oops we landed in the wrong universe, implied polyamory, implied timepetals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Washedawaycloud/pseuds/Washedawaycloud
Relationships: Rose Tyler & The Corsair
Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050176
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Rose Petals in a Bell Jar

They dream together more now. It’s so strange, he is so different. Nine had been similar to the end of his Eighth life, very similar. Worn, pained, and at a loss of how to continue. Ten? Ten reminds her of a puppy, and the Corsair has to wonder what he focused on to get that way. If he focused at all. For having the record in that silly game played in the Academy, the Doctor seemed to constantly flout convention. She’ll never understand.

“You’ve gotten stupidly tall,” she grouses, pushing back her pain. Another strange phenomenon. She only returns to regenerating when in his mind. Or perhaps they are in hers, she can never tell anymore. When it is just her and the Moment it is as if time has protracted to the point she is caught between two hearts beats.

But here, the pain returns. Fainter than it should be, but it’s there, and she’s pushing it back for the first time in all her lives.

“Don’t you like this me? You can’t say you liked the last one better –“

“Thete,” she sighs at him, reaching up to cup his cheek. “I’ll _like_ you as a little old man and I will _like_ you as a very tall, gangly puppy.”

He raises a brow at her. He towers over her, and uses it to his advantage as he reaches for her hips, grasps them, pulls her closer by them. Oh, he’s like _that_ this time around. “Just like me?”

“Doctor,” she chides, leaning her chin on his sternum. “I love you, you know that.”

“Can’t feel you anymore, so I need to hear it.” He murmurs and suddenly hikes her up by the arse so he doesn’t have to look down at her. “The loss of you still hurts me.”

“I’m right here,” she presses her cheek to his, wishes she could feel the bond, and his mind properly. But she’s numb now, to that, to him. At least while they are like this. While she is here and not here, and he is there.

“I’m going to kiss you.” He declares, voice wavering. “Until the end of time, I’m going to kiss you.”

“I think I can live with that.”

* * *

“What’s happening?!” Time feels wrong like it might be bleeding, or will bleed soon. Everything is tense and she feels the flare of lindos and pain of her body decaying again. The Moment has her eyes shut tight, looking, feeling, for what this is.

“You have to go again.”

“I can’t. I’ll regenerate – I don’t know, I’m not –“

“If you don’t go Rose dies. There’s _no Pete_ in that world! Just Mickey and he doesn’t know.”

The Corsair is growling, panting, and jerks her head in assent. “All right. Tell me what needs to happen to keep this damn loop going.” She hates this. Being apart from him, from _life_. Rose, she wants to actually _know_ the girl, rather than just watch them dance around one another from afar.

She hates feeling like he’s not dancing _with_ Rose because he’s saving his card for her. It doesn’t always work that way and she’s tried to tell him. Tried to give him a push. Stubborn man-child he is. Omega, she misses him like nothing else in the universe, except, perhaps, Esperanza.

The Corsair flares into being and her skin shines with golden light. Pulses and swirls and there is Rose. She could just catch her, just save her. But Bad Wolf wrote this timeline, and if they deviate even an iota, where Rose is concerned, this all collapses. 

The blonde hits her chest, arms winding tight around her waist, she looks up, and the Doctor sees them both for just a moment, their minds touch – and the link shatters as the Moment pulls them both to where Rose needs to be. The regeneration stops _again._ And the Corsair collapses, only to be caught by the blonde.

“You’re real.” That accent makes the Corsair smile, it’s so familiar, so utterly Rose. No other woman in the whole of the Universe forms her words quite the same.

“Aye, lass. I’m real.”

“You saved me, thank you.”

“You saved him, and in a very roundabout way, me, too.” Green eyes cast around to find where they are. It’s not the box, so they aren’t...between life and death again. But her mind is silent, completely. It hits her like a train and she can’t control her breath for a moment.

“Where –“

“Dunno.” Rose growls and sighs. “No Zeppelins. We aren’t in Mickey’s Universe.”

“Fuck me,” The redhead sighs, and sags against the blonde. Her time sense is muddled, straining, as well as several other secondary senses attuned only to time and the universe around her. “If we meet Bad Wolf again, there will be words, girlie. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Amber and Green eyes meet, flaring golden for a moment before they both grin. “Wonder what trouble we can make before we get back to where we belong, eh?”

“Oh. I like you.”


End file.
